Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/73

Rh Finally I may mention that he takes much trouble to show that the popes and also the Jesuits were of no account and were practically powerless. The middle ages, he says, were far less religious than is generally believed, and this explains the weakness of the popes.

I can say no more here regarding Černyševskii's Siberian phase. Upon certain points I reserve my definitive judgment until I have had an opportunity for studying all the correspondence and other material at first hand. But this much seems certain to me, that in any special study of Černyševskii, we should have in the case likewise of his Siberian exile to examine the various utterances in relation to the time and circumstances in which they were made, for in Siberia, too, Černyševskii's development was continuing.

Rusanov concludes his report by asking whether Černyševskii's socialistic opinions underwent any notable change in Siberia. "Of course not!" is his answer, but it is not unlikely, he says, that Černyševskii's views may have changed regarding the possibility of speedily effecting any thorough transformation in Russia. In the belief that an energetic attack upon the government and the great landowners was practicable, Černyševskii had sacrificed himself to the historical process; later he may have come to believe that, as a preliminary, reformist endeavours must be favoured, to secure the general diffusion of sound ideas, and that the rest would follow in due course.

Rusanov is himself in agreement with Volgen in Černyševskii's Siberian novel The Prologue, when Volgen tells his young interlocutors that the participation of the French democrats in the affair of 1848 came within the category of stupidity.